Creating your own website is challenging. There is too much information, and a lot of it changes rapidly. Tools, articles, information for feeling more comfortable with your own website. @MarcKneepkens

Produce good video more quickly from your phone using these three tips – Content Marketing Institute.

Video is the rising star of content marketing. In our survey with the CMO Council, 79% of senior marketers say video’s role will increase in overall visual content strategies. And since we all carry powerful cameras in our pockets every day, content marketers have no excuse not to experiment with video.

Not every video can be shot on your phone, but authentic, timely video can have a high impact even if its production quality is lower. It requires little financial investment, has a short learning curve, and offers high potential return. The key here is speed: Quality phone videos are a perfect fit for sharing stories in the moment. Here are three tips for creating effective video content in a flash using your phone. Read more: click image or title.

As a seasoned marketer, you’re well-aware of the need to ‘reach the right audiences at the right time with the right message.’ You’ve heard this expression over and over — so we won’t belabor the point.

You already know why you need to do it. The problem is that you’re part of a small team and that there are only 24 hours in a day. Presumably (read: hopefully), you spend some of that time sleeping and having fun.

You need an arsenal of high-impact tactics — stuff that’s creative, easy to implement, and pilot-tested by others in your field. That’s where this blog post comes in — to give you some quick, ready-to-execute ideas.

Working with Canva.Canva is a simplified and streamlined, online-only image creation tool that gives even non-designers the ability to quickly and easily create simple yet attractive images.

Out with the old

Historically, the best visual content had to be created by highly skilled professionals. Image design required the use of massively complex suites of tools that had virtually unlimited options and features, but steep learning curves. This was great for the most imaginative of visual artists, but for the rest of us design mortals, the concept of unfettered freedom often paralyzed our productivity: There were just too many options, too many tools to master, and too many possible directions we could go in. Inevitably, we would get bogged down in the decision process and fail to move into the actual creation phase.

In with the new

Thankfully, a new class of tools is emerging that offers a simpler, leaner approach to creating visual content. While these tools still enable marketers to design compelling and powerful visual content, they streamline the creation process and set tighter parameters so creators don’t get as overwhelmed.

The internet is a worldwide network of computers, but it seems very intangible to most of us. In a general sense, the internet is made up of a lot of different components: Websites, users, servers, browsers, networking cables, and more. Some of these things have a physical component, and some of them do not, but even the ones that do have a physical component can be hard to conceptualize spatially. These maps help to lend that spatial component to the Internet.

A powerful new version of Visme featuring a new text editor, audio recording, global color palette and hundreds of new infographic templates.

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Payman Taei

Announcing the Release of the New Visme

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/banner-01.jpg

The process of upgrading Visme started back in March of 2015. After eight months and thousands of man hours, we can comfortably say the new Visme is easier to use and all around more refined. It addresses over 30 user requests, incorporates new features and provides users with a much smoother experience.

When comparing the new Visme to our legacy version, users have reported an improvement of over 50% in productivity and a noticeable reduction in friction in their work flow.

If you are an existing user, you will not see any cosmetic changes in the Visme interface, but a cumulation of numerous small refinements (and new features) which will provide a smoother workflow and improve the overall user experience in comparison with the existing version.

We have put together a list of tools that can help you create amazing visual content like infographics, memes, gifs, etc. Must read for every online marketer.

Marty Note

Great list mostly new to me. Missing one of my favorite visual marketing tools Haiku Deck: http://haikudeck.com/ . Haiku Deck is much more than a simple UI on the Creative Commons. If you are SMART you will use Haiku and some of these other #cooltools to create the kind of arresting visual marketing we all need and aspire to daily.

Six in ten of us are visual learners: people who learn best when information is delivered through the eyes; by looking at images or videos, or reading. That’s just one of the reasons why visual content is so important in today’s content marketing world.

But constantly churning out visual content presents a challenge: you need to find meaningful data to fuel that content and, more importantly, you need to find stories within that data that tie into your brand’s values and strategic goals.

If you're a visual learner like myself, then you know maps, charts and infographics can really help bring data and information to life. Maps can make a point resonate with readers and this collection aims to do just that.

Hopefully some of these maps will surprise you and you’ll learn something new. A few are important to know, some interpret and display data in a beautiful or creative way, and a few may even make you chuckle or shake your head.

According to 3M Corporation and Zabisco, 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. The Internet has taken visual marketing to the next level and infographics are becoming a major part of that growth.Here are 10 benefits to using infographics in your marketing and on your website....

One of the best visual techniques in capturing your users' attention is the use of images on your site. They are especially useful to bring a point across, beautify the website and enhance articles...

There are many stock free image sites on the web where you can purchase such images for reasonable prices. However, there are also many sites that let you download such high quality images free-of-charge. Find the best selection the internet has to offer:

1. StockFreeImages– This site belongs to Dreamstime.com and used to be in their free section. In March of 2012, all of the images were ported over to this current site. The images from this site alone has saved me thousands of dollars as I have literally used hundreds of their images for my niche sites. You will need to register one time in order to download and it has a liberal attribution policy (only required where possible). They currently have more than half a million large high-quality images (yes, you read that correctly, it is more than 570K images) for free download. If there is only one site you can choose, you definitely will not go wrong with StockFreeImages.com

2. stock.xchng – This is one of the most well-known and popular site on the internet that has a large collection of free-to-use stock photos. Currently has almost 400K free images to choose from. Registration is a must to use the photos and attribution does not seem to be required at the moment.

3. FreeDigitalPhotos.net – This site has plenty of images that are pretty original and it a very good site to source for new ones. Registration and attribution are required in order to download and use the images. The images, although smaller than most, are still great alternatives to the other sites.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.